Be Excellent To Each Other

Sad TV day... Just put on my old tellybox and my freeview thing is stuck on ITV (why ITV of all things - I never put it on ITV, why is it stuck on that I can't watch anything through my main TV tuner either, as that is stuck on AV (has been for a couple of years. Luckily I have another TV to watch, but it's only a temporary solution as it only has the five main channels, can't use freeview and is only 5.5" diagonally anyway, and black and white (but the TV is pink, and so is, of course, excellent...)

I suppose I need a new TV and freeview combo, and wondered if anyone had any ideas where I could get one for not much money. It doesn't have to be big or flashy (my main TV, the stuck one, is a tad smaller than a normal portable - I think it is 12.5" diagonally and is quite old.

I don't care about names or brands, as long as it works. I think that a supermarket may be an option, but as I am not much good at carrying anything heavier than, say, a small orange, I don't want anything too heavy. I don't really know how much TVs weight nowadays - mine seems to be made of lead and other heavy things...

Also, does anyone use freeview boxes? Any RMDs about those.

Oh, and nothing too big/expensive. I am poor and have little room

Are we supposed to measure TVs diagonally or is that something I've been doing all my life for no reason?

I have this

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... D19.19.htm

It doesn't have built in freeview but it does look nice with my 360 running through it. Definitely a budget model though. If you're going to spend say, another £50 or so can I suggest a Samsung.

And yes, diagonal across the screen.

Here's said TV in action.

That looks about what I was hoping for, Dudley. A 19" screen seems far more than I had expected for my money - I was hoping to spend around £200 or thereabouts for something smaller, so for that I can get a Freeview box, too.

It probably will be after I have been away when I can actually get one, but that looks great and will take up less room as my current TV is deeper than it is wide...

"the TV so SHARP it makes the real world blurry"

Let me take a pic of how thin it is, a freebox can often be had for as little as a tenner from Asda. I'd offer you a spare but travel or shipping would cost that much I suspect.

Hehe - yes, it does make the rest of the room look blurry, but the picture is great. Also, Dudley, thanks for taking that picture - it looks so much better than my current TV (which is really just a crisp box with the front cut out and an assemblage of cuddly toys dressed as the cast of Neighbours), but it's really helpful to see what it looks like in action.

Cheers, Duds.

Ok, here's from above.

Or would be if the board didn't delete attachments when you preview.

Edit : That's my ancient Freeview box behind it, not more TV. It's so old it's "ON Digital" branded.

That really is thin

Malc

I'm sold.

Thanks for your help, dudley - it's more than I had hoped I could get for my money.

Thankyou for taking the time out to take those pictures, also, that is a great help.


- Mimi (also, Monkey WILL be pleased... )

No problem. Incidentally if your 360 is going into it, use the component cable and set to HD for a very pleasant surprise compared to a 14" standard def portable

Most excellent The 360 and the tellybox will indeed be soon acquainted.

I have just reserved from Argos, remembering that my brother sent me an email this afternoon saying that their school is in sight (a fact also handily reminded to me by your first picture) and brothers = carrying.

Plus, they never come over to visit, I will bribe them with a cheap, shoddy mariokart steering wheel that came free in NGamer.

Hah! Just took me a good minute to work out the first picture part of that post

Our TV died the other day, I had two or three blissful days of being able to eat my dinner in the front room without swearing at property programmes. My housemate got another TV today and now I resume my swearing If I don't download it off bit torrent, then I don't want to watch it.

£200? I got this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132112

Which is giving lovely 1080p on my 360 and has one of pretty much every input on the back. Then in a year or two when I upgrade it is going to be my next PC monitor, plus is Samsung and you can't go wrong wth a Samsung LCD in the same was as you couldn't go wrong with a Sony portable casette player in the eighties.

No freeview on it, but then today's freeview boxes are a tenner in asda and TVs with internal freeview will all be obsolete in a couple of years anyway as they aren't HD boxes and telly is pretty much heading that way anyroad.

/edit I should also point out that while I'm gushing about the above product, I am, like Pupil, very much of the opinion that watching TV is for cunts and never do it unless theres Daleks.

See, you have presented me with the age old problem of inexpensive vs. shiny...

This is how I ended up with the world's most beautiful silver necklace and no food for two weeks...

I will sleep on it. Plus, I need a TV to watch:

1] Anything with Stephen Fry in it
2] University Challenge

Mimi, if you can get to Wolverhampton/Staffordshire, I have 28" of televisual goodness primed and ready to go WITH YOUR NAME ON IT if you want it. CRT, widescreen, not even a year old, nothing wrong with it. Yours in exchange for a hug.

Oh, CUS, that is so kind, but if I cannot walk there or get a bus then it is out of my range Sadly, I don't drive, but thankyou soooooooo much for being so generous and lovely xxx


Also, I don't think a 28" would fit in my telly space Everything I own is in miniature for some reason.

Don't thank me too much, I was planning to look down your top during the hug.

It wouldn't have mattered as I would have come dressed as a koala so you wouldn't have seen much.

Have the hug anyways for being aces...


Hold -on Dimrill! We need a hugging icon!

Meems, I have the exact Samsung TV being pimped up there, chosen from advice from various people including people from here. It's aces, and the Xbox looks fantastic on it. If you can afford it, it's a definate purchase. It looks lovely too.

Indeed, if you're going to spend more cash, Samsung definitely (as you'll note I said in my first post), My dad has a 23" version of similar.

My recommendation was based on being poor. That said I think you'll find the difference mostly to be in "ooh I have a trusted brand" warm feelings rather than any actual massive quality benefits. Also said linked one can take a 1080P feed I'm sure but for very obvious reasons it won't display it properly.

We can't just go around creating dimlies willy nilly, you know! We'll have to vote.

How much difference does this make?
I am looking at a new telly for my xbox, and wonder whther to go for a nice shiny TV like that samsung (@ 1680 x1050), or go for a monitor that can do 1920 x 1200.
Also, does the above TV do screen in screen?

Yes, I noticed when Goatboy mentioned it that you also also mentioned the same brand. I am on a tight budget, but if Samsung are supposed to be very good TVs then I will try and find the extra £50 to get one of those. To hell with the silly concept of eating

If anyone is going to buy a 1600x1050 PC-monitor-rebadged-as-a-telly, then please check that it can show telly in 16:9 ratio, because that resolution is 16:10 and leads to egg heads.

I did a willy one!

THREAD HIJACK!

I am also in need of a television. Specifically one of those lovely HD ones. It will be used solely for playing my 360 on, as when I saw the 360 running in HD goodness on myoptikakakakakakakakakakkaa's TV I instantly succumbed to envy.

I have no idea of costs (though not too much, please). What's a good deal for a moderately large telly of this flat-HD variety?

At that size? Bugger all. Just thought I'd point it out.

As for PIP, mine doesn't, I don't know about the Samsung.



Well I did have the £50 and I didn't bother

If you have a sufficiently big Argos they've almost certainly got these TVs on display (Ealing has them for instance) it might be worth a look.



If you're looking for cheap, buy this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126887

If you're looking for expensive, find a Samsung at that size.

Actually, I have a Samsung monitor (22") and on that basis I would never buy a Samsung anything again.

Is there anything actually wrong with that TV? I'm sure I heard some TV snobs on Live the other day mocking someone for having the wrong brand of telly...

Myopti - what do you have?

I have that telly, it's awesome. But it's not an LG, and if you don't get an LG, your mates will all take the piss out of you.

I own it. I'm sure telly snobs hate it but that's probably because they spent twice the price (literally at the time, the good brands have come down a bit since) for something incrementally better, if at all.



Really? What kind? What's wrong?

TVs are stupidly heavy. I ended up carrying a 21" CRT about the other week, and the damn thing almost killed me. Don't count on being able to carry anything much bigger than a 15" around for very long without giving yourself a hernia. You certainly don't want to try to lug a 32" LCD on to the bus, or anything like that. Even your two brothers, sneakily bribed with a steering wheel, are gonna have trouble lugging a big one up stairs.

I have the biggest CRT TV that I could find at the time. It takes two delivery men to move it anywhere, and even then they really struggled to get it up the stairs. It is almost as deep as it is wide!

Insecure-FTFY.

My 32" Toshiba weighs 15kg by itself, plus 3Kg or so for the stand, and was about 21kg in the box. I wouldn't want to carry it on a bus but that's not hard to move up a flight of stairs by yourself. The biggest problem is the slightly awkward shape, rather than the weight, as it's a little too big to get your arms around.

Friend of mine has a flatscreen 36" Toshiba CRT that weighs 97kg. I was going to buy it off him once but it would have crushed my Ikea TV stand into firewood.

You know, I haven't thought of weighing my TV... *goes to weigh all items in his house and make a database of his findings*

Oh gods. I'm sure Dimrill really will be doing this now, too.

Should I separate out each particle of dust to weigh individually, or pool them together into one big dusty item?

Weigh them all, then divide the total by the number of particles of dust to find an average weight.

Katamari Dedusty?

Katamari DimOCD more like.

Samsung 226BW. The color banding is horrific and loses detail.

The 19" TV I recommended weighs 6kg. I can easily carry it on my own. CRTs though? Nope. My 19" CRT PC Monitor is 3 times that weight and of course bulky as all hell.

The 37" Hannspree is about 15 I think so not a problem as two people. That 96kg CRT....crikey.



Interesting, not something I'd seen before but it's not a model I'm familiar with.

I've only ever carried around CRTs. I thought that plasmas / LCDs where heaver, for some reason.

You do realise that makes absolutely no logical sense whatsoever right?

Yeah, god knows why I came up with that. Maybe I thought that the LCD stuff was super dense or something. I guess it's all those cathode rays that weigh down the old fashioned TVs.

My Sammy 19" monitor (a 940BW) has a fantastic picture and is mainly responsible for me picking a Samsung TV.

Also, if peope aren't aware, the Sammy TV we were talking about, can display TV in 16:9, 16:10, 4:3 or various zooms. It'll only do so over the Composite, Component, Scart, and SVideo, it definately DOESNT over VGA. If you try and set 1080p in VGA, it'll display a picture but the edges will be cut off because the resolution isn't high enough. I'm not sure about HDMI because my Xbox is crusty and old and doesn't have HDMI.

I have mine set up like this :

Xbox 360 - HD plugs (the normal ones that came with the Premium, set to HDTV) , 16:9
Xbox 1 - Those Three Prongs, You Know, The Red White and Yellow Ones, 16:9
Saturn, RF, 4:3
Freeview Box, SCART, 16:9
PC (TV is Monitor 2) - DVI, 16:10
Dreamcast - VGA, 16:9

I flick between these with one button, and it means I don't have to keep reaching round the back of the TV. It's ideal for me.